The Kobe Dragons: Chapter 13

13
Kobe, Solaris City
Solaris VII, Lyran Commonwealth
17 February 3042

Although loud or unruly behaviour was normally frowned upon in the Snowbird, when the Kobe Dragons walked in Friday night, the entire bar thundered with applause and cheers. Patrons and staff alike welcomed them loudly and enthusiastically. They were now heroes to the citizens of Kobe because they hadn’t simply beaten the Black Hills Legionnaires, they had humiliated them.
    The Warhammer belonging to team captain Anderson Carlyle would probably have its engine replaced because it would simply be easier than trying to repair it. Lisa Tager’s Crusader had been blown to smithereens and she was in hospital. Mathew Gadbois had been killed when Garadun destroyed his Centurion. The poor sod hadn’t even had time to eject. Only Benton Forbes had come through with his ‘Mech in more or less one piece, if somewhat battered. The Legionnaires now had to rebuild their team.
    Cera led her friends into the Snowbird and everyone was dressed in stylish attire for a night out of celebration. Garadun was sporting a new coat he’d bought a couple weeks before: it was very long and made from black reptile leather, with the Kobe Dragons logo etched into the right sleeve at the shoulder. Yuriko was with them as well and she applauded along with the rest of the crowd. The bar’s manager, Kensuke Fuji, welcomed them in person.
    “The heroes of Kobe,” he said with a wide smile when the applause finally died down, and bowed. “The Snowbird is deeply honoured to have you here, Kuroda-san.”
    “It is we who are honoured, Fuji-san,” Cera told him, bowing back.
    “Then let us honour you further: tonight you are guests of the Snowbird,” Kensuke told them happily. “Please, Kuroda-san, I have a place reserved for you.”
    They were led to a more secluded corner of the bar, to a large booth where the bench seat curved around the central table. Coats were hung up and they sat down as a waitress arrived with menus. Everyone ordered a round of drinks; Garadun asked for some of the Snowbird’s tasty noodles. Now that they’d been seated, the bar returned to its usual quiet atmosphere, although there was still excitement in the air.
    Cera grinned and lifted her glass in a toast. “Well, Dragons, here’s to us: honour and glory. Victory is ours.”
    “Honour and glory,” said Garadun, Tashizo and Aya merrily, clinking their glasses before taking long pulls on their drinks.
    “To the Kobe Dragons!” Yuriko raised her glass in salute. Cera gave her friend a squeeze and the team clinked their glasses against Yuriko’s. The noise level rose slightly and everyone looked around to see the Dragons versus Legionnaires match was being replayed on the bar’s holoscreens. The lancemates watched with great interest, having not seen the broadcast yet. When Garadun’s Hunchback deployed from the Leopard in its unscheduled combat drop, it earned many enthusiastic murmurs and comments from the bar’s patrons, even a bit of applause.
    “Damn, that takes stones,” Tashizo remarked in English, throwing his friend a grin. “You make it look easy.”
    Garadun smirked, shaking his head. “Trust me, it’s not.”
    As the battle unfolded they swapped comments about the action. It was always interesting to see an outsider’s view of arena combat, especially after the networks had edited the footage together and added commentary and music to make it all the more exciting and dramatic. And at a bar like this, with close-circuit holovid, the action wasn’t broken up with commercials; those came between the matches.
    As the evening progressed, the members of the Kobe Dragons were repeatedly asked for their autographs from their many fans who were in the bar with them. For Aya, the sudden fame was exciting and required some getting used to. Her friends handled it with more aplomb because of their experience in the Games, but this level of notoriety was new even for Cera and Garadun. They all posed for holographs as well, and when Garadun signed his name he did it in kanji. Although he couldn’t read or write Japanese, the one thing he could do was sign his name because Cera had shown him the characters and he’d practiced it again and again until he’d got it right.

Tashizo and Garadun were at the Snowbird’s main bar enjoying a drink while the women were at their booth chatting animatedly. Cera had complimented Yuriko on how fabulous she looked in her dress, and Yuriko told Cera how amazing she looked in her outfit, and they both complimented Aya, and that in turn had started a discussion on clothes – whereupon the lads made a tactical retreat.
    “Odate-san, Morr-san, I think you’ll want to watch this,” the bartender told them and they looked up at the nearest holoscreen while he increased the volume. It was a Solaris Broadcasting Corporation 24-hour news program called GameWorld News. This cycle’s newsreader was an attractive woman of Middle Eastern ancestry.
    “To repeat this hour’s breaking story: Black Hills Stable owner Montgomery Davis has lodged an official protest with the Solaris City Combat League, citing use of illegal equipment by the Kobe Dragons,” she said in English. “Davis is claiming that the Orion belonging to team captain Cera Kuroda is sporting a Star League-era gauss rifle, a weapon none of the other teams in the League possess, and therefore gives the Kobe Dragons an unfair advantage. Further, Davis is demanding that the Hunchback belonging to Garadun Morr be examined because he says, quote, ‘The damn thing’s autocannon is a lot more powerful than anything anyone’s ever seen. It has to be Star League lostech like the gauss rifle, and therefore illegal’, end quote.”
    “What a load of crap!” Garadun protested loudly, and Tashizo and people near them muttered in angry agreement.
    “The management of the Kobe Dragons have denied the use of any illegal equipment, citing that nowhere in the SCCL charter does it prohibit the use of any kind of Star League technology, weapons or otherwise. A spokesperson for the League said the charges will be examined to see if they have merit.”
    “They’re nothing but pathetic losers,” Tashizo remarked with a dismissive wave of his hand when GameWorld News went to commercial. “Typical Federats. They get in a fair fight, have their asses kicked, and then whine about it.”
    Garadun flashed him a big grin and made an L with his right forefinger and thumb, pressing it against his forehead. Tashizo laughed and did the same.
    “Loooosers!” they said together, getting laughs from other patrons nearby.

                                                                          *****

As it turned out, the protest filed by Montgomery Davis proved to be baseless. There was nothing in the Solaris City Combat League rules that prohibited the use of Star League lostech. That the Kobe Dragons had managed to acquire a gauss rifle was simply their good fortune. Furthermore, as the regulations board pointed out, numerous teams in addition to the Kobe Dragons were employing recovered lostech: namely cellular ammunition storage equipment, more simply known as CASE. It was the hottest thing on the market, and everyone who could afford it, wanted it, because it made the difference between an intact BattleMech and one scattered across the landscape.
    The decision to reject the petition was greeted heartily by the Kobe Dragons and their fans, and led to a lot of chatter on the message boards and talk shows about how the Black Hills Legionnaires couldn’t take their loss with dignity. Their case wasn’t helped by the fact that their fellow Davions, the Sunburst Strikers, uttered a lot of public trash talk about the Kobe Dragons that came across as petty and racist. The worst of it came from Zachary Daniels, cousin of the late Ryan Daniels who’d died in a duel against Garadun on Galatea in 3038. Despite the duel being legally issued and accepted, Daniels branded Garadun a murderer. He also said Mathew Gadbois had been murdered and publicly declared vendetta. But given that pretty much everyone at Sunburst Stables wanted him dead, Garadun took the latest threat to his life in stride. A few days later he appeared on Solaris Today, one of the SBC’s leading daytime talk shows hosted by Olivia Decaro, and answered her questions on the issue.
    “I can’t stop the ravings of small-minded bigots,” Garadun told Olivia. “We trounced the Legionnaires in a fair fight and they can’t deal with it. Sucks to be them and it’s not my problem. As for Daniels and his idiotic vendetta...”
    Garadun looked into the camera. “You want a piece of me, Daniels? Bring it. If you want a duel, then I’ll be happy to oblige you. Any arena, any time.”
    It came as no surprise to anyone that the day after the interview aired, Peter Sandlin, the general manager of Sunburst Stables, held a brief press conference in which he said that none of the Sunburst Strikers would be fighting any duels. Their focus was on the upcoming match against the Coventry Roughriders. He took no questions.
    A week after the Dragons defeated the Legionnaires, on the twenty-fourth, the match between the Coventry Roughriders representing the Lyran Commonwealth, and the Sunburst Strikers fighting for the glory of the Federated Suns, took place in the new and impressive Hirsch Arena. The Roughriders consisted of team captain Lars Scheiffer in his Thunderbolt, Winston Bloch in a Warhammer, Angelina McAdams in a custom Chameleon, and Michael Reese piloting a Phoenix Hawk. Facing them on the field were the Strikers led by Andrew Ross in a Victor, Nancy Burton in a Centurion, Charles Hogan in a Crusader, and loudmouth Zachary Daniels in an Enforcer.
    It was a fairly even battle at the start; both teams were equally skilled and their BattleMechs well matched. Disaster for the Roughriders unfortunately struck when their Warhammer suffered an ammunition breach and was blown to pieces. Winston Bloch managed to eject safely, but the damage was done: the Roughriders had lost one of their big guns and were now outnumbered. Angelina McAdams managed to disable Daniels by damaging his Enforcer’s gyro, but by that time it was too late. Not wanting to risk losing another machine, Captain Scheiffer conceded the match.
    The following Thursday, the third of March, saw the Crimson Lancers fighting for the pride of the Magistracy of Canopus; against the Cathay Tigers who were battling for the honour of Cathay and the Capellan Confederation. Cera and Garadun’s loyalties were a little split on the issue. They were on good terms with the Cathay Tigers and Li Song was Garadun’s friend, who was of course rooting for the Tigers. But their comrades in the Fighting Fusiliers were currently in service to the Magistracy; and their patron, Countess Adele Jansen, was also a good friend. Added to this was the fact that the four Canopian pilots were all very beautiful, very hot women.
    The two teams fought each other in the forested battlefield of Shirakami. The Tigers consisted of David Chiang in his Archer, Sun-Luk Tam in the ever-popular Warhammer, Jennifer Wong in a Vindicator, and Natasha Tseng in her modified Blackjack. The Lancers included beautiful brunette Victoria Palvin in her Marauder, vivacious redhead Elizabeth Marks in another Vindicator, Asian beauty Hyun-Sun Park in her Griffin, and hot blonde Anne Falchi in her customised JagerMech.
    The Cathay Tigers were the odds-on favourites. Most people, including the bookies, assumed MechWarriors from the Periphery were unskilled greenies. To say nothing about four women who looked like high class nude models or porn holovid stars. Cera and Garadun weren’t most people, and knew the Crimson Lancers would probably put up a better fight than anyone expected. They were proven right when they not only put up a good fight, but created the season’s first upset by defeating the Cathay Tigers. Anne Falchi proved to be as talented as she was gorgeous, and her JagerMech created a lot of talk because all its autocannons had been replaced with lasers, and its normally weak armour had been drastically improved.
    Never trust outward appearances.